Cuba – 1928

6th
Pan-American Conference

Although
President Wilson played a leading role in the establishment of the League of
Nations, he was unable to guide his country into this general society of
states. The fact that the ICAN (International Commission for Air
Navigation) was considered formally linked with the League was one of reasons
why the USA did not join it. The need for a separate form of international
cooperation on a regional American basis was result of this situation.

The
Delegates to the 5th International Conference of American States
held at Santiago Chile, from 25 March to 3 May 1923, adopted a resolution
providing for the creation of an Inter-American Commercial Aviation Commission
to meet at a place and date to be determined by the Governing Board of the
Pan-American Union to consider problems related to aviation. The conclusions of
the commission were to be drawn up in the form of a convention (or conventions)
and submitted to the consideration of State members of the Pan-American Union.

From 2 to 19
May 1927 had met in Washington the Commercial Aviation Commission, which had
drawn up the project of a Pan-American Convention of Aerial Navigation. The
majority of the states represented were the same ones that had concluded six
months before the CIANA (Convenio Ibero Americano de
Navegación Aérea, called the Ibero-American Convention on Air Navigation,
signed in Madrid in October 1926). This Pan-American Commission had
not had the task as easy as the Ibero-American Conference. It also took the Paris
Convention as starting point, but it carried out many modifications that
were of importance.

Further to
the above Commission, the Pan American Convention on Commercial Aviation
had been finalized in Havana early 1928 under the auspices of the Sixth
Pan-American Conference (held in Havana, Cuba, from 16 January to 20 February
1928). President Calvin Coolidge of USA arrived in Havana on 15 January
and addressed the Conference on the opening day. The
United States and
twenty other States located in the Western Hemisphere signed the Convention on
20 February 1928. This new Convention weakened the ICAN’s (International
Commission for Air Navigation) international stature.

The Havana
Convention was modeled after the Paris Convention; it applied exclusively to
private aircraft (government aircraft were not included) and laid down basic
principles and rules for aerial traffic, recognizing that every State had
complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory and
adjacent territorial waters. Clauses largely enabled USA owned
airlines to freely operate services within North and South America.

Although the
principles of the Havana Convention were the mutual freedom of air passage, it
made however no attempt to develop uniform technical standards, nor was there
any provision for periodic discussion on common problems through the agency of
a permanent organisation (i.e. a Secretariat). The
Convention did not contain provisions for continuing administrative machinery
and entrusted certain duties of coordination to the Pan-American Union, mainly
to its conference that met every five years. The Havana Convention had no
Annexes; all rules were contained in the treaty itself. Aircraft regulation was
done according to the laws of each country; no uniformity was provided.

The Havana
Convention was approved by the US Senate on 20 February 1931. Pursuant to the
terms of Article 34, the Convention came into force as to the United States in
respect of other countries which had ratified it, 40 days from the deposit by
the United States of its ratification with the Cuban Government. The Convention
was registered with the League of Nations on 12 May 1932.

This
Pan-American Agreement was a certain success, since, signed by 21 States, it
was finally ratified by 16 of them by 1944, i.e. Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa
Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras,
Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, the USA, and Venezuela. The Secretary General ofICANentered intodirect
relations with theDirector General of thePan-American Unionandit
was agreed betweenthem thatthe
secretariat of ICAN shouldregularly communicateto the Unionallinformation
it receivesin exchange ofdocumentationof the same orderthat the Union cangather.

Although the Paris and Havana Conventions served a useful
purpose, they also caused some degree of confusion in actual practice, since
they were two separate sets of rules. However, they were seen to be no longer
adequate for the years after World War II, because of the immense wartime
development of aerial transport. The Convention on International Civil Aviation signed at Chicago
on 7 November 1944 superseded them; there was some readiness to concede that
commercial air rights as well as technical and navigational regulations should
be governed by international agreement.

Cuba issued
a set of ten stamps to commemorate this Conference. The centring of most of the
stamps of this issue is fair.

It is
interesting to note that, during the Sixth Pan-American Conference, the Lindbergh
Week was held from 8 to 15 February 1928 in Havana. Charles Lindbergh stopped
at Havana on 8 February on a Good Will Tour. On
the same day, Cuba issued a stamp to commemorate Lindbergh’s visit
(carmine rose, Philadelphia Navy Yard PN-9 seaplane
over Havana Harbour overprinted in black with LINDBERGH / FEBRERO 1928). See
below the First Day Covers.

World known
pilot, Charles A. Lindbergh arrived in Havana from Haiti piloting the Spirit
of St. Louis on his Goodwill Tour of the Caribbean and stopped there from 8
to 13 February. 8 February was known as Lindbergh Day. On 12 February 1928, President
Gerardo Machado y Morales flew over Havana, with Charles Lindbergh.

Following
his Atlantic crossing, Lindbergh visited many countries in his plane; he had
the national flags of each country painted in the fuselage. The Cuban flag was
the last one; following his trip to Cuba, Lindbergh retired
"The Spirit of St. Louis" and donated it to the Smithsonian Institution,
where it is exhibited today at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington,
D.C.

Cuba – 2 February 1928 – First Day Cover.

Front and back of a cover sent registered on the first
day of the Conference, i.e. 2 January 1928 (with 10-centavo stamp);
stationery cover from the ship of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company docked
in Havana, Cuba.

On
8 February 1928, Cuba issued this stamp overprinted in black with LINDBERGH /
FEBRERO 1928; it shows a Philadelphia Navy Yard PN-9 seaplane over Havana Harbour.
This Cuban stamp is a reproduction in carmine rose of the design of the first
airmail stamp issued on 1 November 1927 (dark blue).